[media-credit name=”Photos by Clayton Patterson ” align=”aligncenter” width=”600″][/media-credit] Since 1987, the Loisaida Festival has been celebrated on the Sunday before Memorial Day. This year’s installment saw many vendors, including the woman painting a mask, above left. Of course there was great music, from conga players and singers to more casual itinerant music makers, like the read more here »

[media-credit name=”Photos by Clayton Patterson ” align=”aligncenter” width=”600″][/media-credit]Back in the days before digital photography, Lower East Side youth used to flock from far and wide to have their photos taken in front of Clayton Patterson’s grafitti-covered door a.k.a. “The Wall of Fame,” on Essex St. between Houston and Stanton Sts. The L.E.S. documentarian would develop read more here »

[media-credit name=”Photo by Clayton Patterson ” align=”alignleft” width=”300″][/media-credit] Paul Garrin in front of P.S. 20, at Essex and Stanton Sts. BY CLAYTON PATTERSON | I first heard of Paul Garrin after the 1988 Tompkins Square police riot. We both captured, on video, the night of police wilding. Paul’s tape was around 20 minutes and mine was read more here »

[media-credit name=”Photos by Clayton Patterson ” align=”aligncenter” width=”600″][/media-credit] BY CLAYTON PATTERSON | Jochen Auer, the creator of Wildstyle and Tattoo Messe, needed top players in the tattoo world to work at his show. This was 1995. Back then, America was the leading edge of what is best and next in the world of tattoo. I read more here »

[media-credit name=”Photos by Clayton Patterson” align=”aligncenter” width=”600″][/media-credit] Shinji Horizakura, the Japanese tebori master, at work on another “canvas.” BY CLAYTON PATTERSON | The economy in Austria seems to be doing well. The Wildstyle and Tattoo Messe in Salzburg, like Vienna, had capacity crowds and people were spending money. Salzburg is a beautiful city whose most famous son is read more here »

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON | Jochen Auer’s Vienna Wildstyle and Tattoo Messe in the Gasometer continues to bring high-level, world-class talent to his public. A messe is a fair, and the Gasometer is four huge, 19th-century, brick gas tanks that have been converted for various uses, from office and residential to entertainment. One of the contributions I read more here »

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON | In 1990 at the Chelsea Hotel, Linda Twigg gave a party to celebrate the release of Herbert Huncke’s autobiography, “Guilty of Everything.” Huncke roomed in the walk-in closet of Linda’s second-floor gaming den. The party was a solid cross-section of the well-known radicals, activists, literary types, club divas and other well-recognized read more here »

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON | In actuality, having a film out is a job. A job that requires a lot of work, and there is the small glimmer of hope for some kind of payoff. I am still out there pitching “Captured,” my biopic, and in doing this kind of work, one at times ends up in read more here »

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON | I recently finished reading a book called “The Mammoth Book of Tough Guys,” by Robin Barratt. In Barratt’s world the tough guy is a man whose livelihood is connected to his fighting ability, his knowledge of fighting techniques and the respect he has earned using his physical abilities. His tough guys read more here »

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON | For many, the Lower East Side represented much more than a geographic location with ever-changing borders. The L.E.S. was a magical kingdom where almost anything seemed possible and we felt we had the freedom to be whoever we wanted to be, to say whatever we needed to say, and the right read more here »